Cancer metastasis is the primary cause of post-operation or post-therapy recurrence in cancer patients. Despite intensive efforts to develop treatments, cancer metastasis remains substantially refractory to therapy. Bone is one of the most common sites of metastasis of various types of human cancers (e.g., breast, lung, prostate and thyroid cancers). The occurrence of osteolytic bone metastases causes serious morbidity due to intractable pain, high susceptibility to fracture, nerve compression and hypercalcemia. Despite the importance of these clinical problems, there are few available treatments for bone loss associated with cancer metastasis.
Osteoclasts mediate bone readsorption. Osteoclasts are multinucleated cells differentiating from haemopoietic cells. It is generally accepted that osteoclasts are formed by the fusion of mononuclear precursors derived from haemopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow, rather than incomplete cell divisions (Chambers, Bone and Mineral Research, 6: 1-25, 1989; Gothling et al., Clin Orthop Relat R. 120: 201-228, 1976; Kahn et al., Nature 258: 325-327, 1975, Suda et al., Endocr Rev 13: 66-80, 1992; Walker, Science 180: 875, 1973; Walker, Science 190: 785-787, 1975; Walker, Science 190: 784-785, 1975). They share a common stem cell with monocyte-macrophage lineage cells (Ash et al., Nature 283: 669-670, 1980, Kerby et al., J. Bone Miner Res 7: 353-62, 1992). The differentiation of osteoclast precursors into mature multinucleated osteoclasts requires different factors including hormonal and local stimuli (Athanasou et al., Bone Miner 3: 317-333, 1988; Feldman et al., Endocrinology 107: 1137-1143, 1980; Walker, Science 190: 784-785, 1975; Zheng et al., Histochem J 23: 180-188, 1991) and living bone and bone cells have been shown to play a critical role in osteoclast development (Hagenaars et al., Bone Miner 6: 179-189, 1989). Osteoblastic or bone marrow stromal cells are also required for osteoclast differentiation. One of the factors produced by these cells that supports osteoclast formation is macrophage-colony stimulating factor, M-CSF (Wiktor-Jedrzejczak et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 87: 4828-4832, 1990; Yoshida et al., Nature 345: 442-444, 1990). Receptor activator for NF-κB ligand (RANKL, also known as TRANCE, ODF and OPGL) is another signal (Suda et al., Endocr Rev 13: 66-80, 1992) through which osteoblastic/stromal cells stimulate osteoclast formation and resorption via a receptor, RANK (TRANCER), located on osteoclasts and osteoclast precursors (Lacey et al., Cell 93: 165-176, 1998; Tsuda et al., Biochem Biophys Res Co 234: 137-142, 1997; Wong et al., J Exp Med 186: 2075-2080, 1997; Wong et al., J Biol. Chem 272: 25190-25194, 1997; Yasuda et al., Endocrinology 139: 1329-1337, 1998; Yasuda et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci US 95: 3597-3602, 1998). Osteoblasts also secrete a protein that strongly inhibits osteoclast formation called osteoprotegerin (OPG, also known as OCIF), which acts as a decoy receptor for the RANKL thus inhibiting the positive signal between osteoclasts and osteoblasts via RANK and RANKL.
Osteoclasts are responsible for dissolving both the mineral and organic bone matrix (Blair et al., J Cell Biol 102: 1164-1172, 1986). Osteoclasts represent terminally differentiated cells expressing a unique polarized morphology with specialized membrane areas and several membrane and cytoplasmic markers, such as tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) (Anderson et al. 1979), carbonic anhydrase II (Väänänen et al., Histochemistry 78: 481-485, 1983), calcitonin receptor (Warshafsky et al., Bone 6: 179-185, 1985) and vitronectin receptor (Davies et al., J Cell Biol 109: 1817-1826, 1989). Multinucleated osteoclasts usually contain less than 10 nuclei, but they may contain up to 100 nuclei being between 10 and 100 μm in diameter (Gothling et al., Clin Orthop Relat R 120: 201-228, 1976). This makes them relatively easy to identify by light microscopy. They are highly vacuolated when in the active state, and also contain many mitochondria, indicative of a high metabolic rate (Mundy, in Primer on the metabolic bone diseases and disorders of mineral metabolism, pages 18-22, 1990). Since osteoclasts play a major role in osteolytic bone metastases, there is a need in the art for new agents and methods for preventing osteoclast stimulation and function.
Thus, there remains a need in the art to identify new agents and methods for preventing or treating osteolysis or cancer metastasis, including osteolytic bone metastases.